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Learn kanji with Kanji gold. A small Tutorial~ by NJT

I always get asked questions on what to use to study Japanese and I always recommend Kanji gold as a great program to learn kanji with. But people don't use it long enough to really get to know why it's sooo good. So I decided to write up a little faq to let you know why it's what I recommend.

I've labelled and written important things in regards to it all on the image .

3. Pop Kanji: It shows kanji in a flash card like way. Great if you want to have something running in the back ground while you do your business and have it burn images into the back of your mind as you keep looking at them while you work .

The review system in Kanji Gold is a computer version of a suggestion by the linguist Dr. Pimsleur several years ago and is based on his studies on how long someone retains a new item in their memory. This method will feed you kanji for review according to a set schedule which depends on how many times you get a kanji correct and how long ago you were tested on the kanji. It works quietly in the background and you can tailor it to your own needs.

You can think of it as several boxes (Kanji gold has 100) in which you place flash cards for each kanji. A card moves to the next higher numbered box when you give the correct answer. The kanji must stay in the box for the time specified for that box. On the other hand, if you get a kanji wrong, it will drop to another box and you will see the kanji more frequently in the future.

You can control what happens when you get a kanji wrong and it drops to another box. This control is on Options/Set Review Constants. You can control the time stamp and how the kanji falls to a lower box when you make an error. If you are away form studying for a will you will have a lot of kanji to revew and they will move as a group. Adjusting these controls will spread the kanji out for the next time they come up for review.

The time for each box is controlled by the number you set in the Option/Set Review Constants. For example, if the first box was set for 10 minutes with a box multiplier of 2.0, the boxes would have times 10 min, 20 min, 40 min, 80 min and so on up to a maximum of 10 years!. The last time the kanji was updated is recorded in the file review.eng (three of them, one for each mode Eng/ON/Kun).

When you press the "On Time" Review Button "R"the computer will load into the testing area all kanji that have been in their box for the required time and leave the others that are not yet ready. You can now test yourself on these kanji and if you get one right it will be promoted to a higher box. If you get one wrong, it will be demoted to the bottom box. Of course, the kanji in the low boxes will show up in the review more often than the ones in the high boxes and kanji you find easy to remember will drift to higher boxes and stay there for longer times.

If you use this system regularly you will have a small number of kanji to review. If you leave it for a long time, many kanji will expire and be ready for review.

9. Create your own Kanji lists!:
Explanation found in help file. Sometimes the grades can be quite tooooo much so make your own lists and use those to study as well~

You can make your own files if you use a word processor like JWPCE that can use the new jis format. Do not use other formats. Then when you load your kanji files, the characters will come up in the order that you want to study them. You can make up any number of these files and save them on the hard disk or on floppy disks.

Method One::

1) Make a file with only the kanjis that you want to use.
2) Save the file with the extension .jis.

The meanings and usage examples will be supplied by files in kanji-gold. About 6000 kanji are available.The files must be saved with the .jis suffix.

You can use # as the first character for a line that you want to be a comment line (like #Lesson one). Otherwise, each line should contain only kanji and no other characters. Also, a line should have no more than 30 kanji characters.

If you load this file into kanji-gold and it complains that there are not enough characters in the file, you are probably using the wrong format.

Method Two:

1) Load any Japanese text file in new jis format into kanji gold. It will extract the kanji out of the file, keeping the order correct.
2) Save the file using File/Save. The new file will only contain kanji.

Serizawa: But it's really heartwarming to see such good guys - perhaps not as good as we wanted, translation-wise, but their hearts are already grade A
If you see a mistake in my translations, let me know! Thanks Click a frog to see my Resume!!

Re: Learn kanji with Kanji gold. A small Tutorial~ by NJT

is this just for kanji, or for a general intro to japanese? because i want to learn, but my college only offers the usual and chinese. i've been to japan about 3 or 4 times, i usually go during summer on business trips with my grandfather, so i'd really like to learn, thanx

"Those that would embrace the path to enlightenment are truly worthy of glory, but those who would hinder these efforts deserve the retribution of the world."

"Guide us on the path that we may triumph over the enemy of our salvation and be with you in the end of ends on the planes of enlightenment."

"Pity not the imprisoned man, but rather pity yourselves, for he shall know true freedom before you do"

Re: Learn kanji with Kanji gold. A small Tutorial~ by NJT

glad it could help

Serizawa: But it's really heartwarming to see such good guys - perhaps not as good as we wanted, translation-wise, but their hearts are already grade A
If you see a mistake in my translations, let me know! Thanks Click a frog to see my Resume!!